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but whole colliseums are erected in their honour and 

 their corpses are laid out on couches at the top of stairs, 

 and are wrapped in black robes or shrouds to enjoy 

 their everlasting sleep. Of course the first visitors are 

 birds ravens, rooks and others which have a taste 

 for meat and these peck away the flesh. But the 

 marrow in any case remains and decomposes at leisure, 

 permeating the air all round; and sometimes the pelting 

 rays of the sun rot a whole frame before the birds can 

 eat it and the pestilent effluvium poisons the atmosphere 

 and does not spare the living, who perish in their super- 

 stitious pride. Outbreaks of plague originate in this way 

 in the neighbourhood of such burying grounds. 



We see a similar phenomenon whenever and where- 

 ver men decline to fulfil nature's laws. Just as a fruit 

 for the development of its seed must be sunk in the 

 ground or it will rot and die, so must mankind on attain- 

 ing maturity unite in wedded pairs for increase of the 

 race which best can help the earth to desiccate and 

 spread its continents and dry its oceans. Sooner or 

 later all water must disappear from the globe into space 

 in oxo-hydrogen, and man is a chief agent in this work. 

 And when man refuses for reasons or from force of cir- 

 cumstances to fulfil his destined function and extend his 

 race, the sins of youth are multiplied and an evil crop 

 of moral results is reaped in nervous illness, various 

 diseases and sometimes death : if then, instead of natural 

 union in pairs dissolute intercourse is practised, future 

 generations suffer specific penalties, and the offender 

 himself is given up a prey to an unhealthy frame and an 

 unquiet conscience. 



Unfortunately of late so many different opinions have 

 been expressed regarding marriage that it is difficult to 

 consider them all in detail. It has become customary 

 to marry young peasants at 18, to settle them down in 

 life that they may fill their proper place in village affairs, 

 but a man aiming at higher education, and consequently 

 well understanding the laws of natural science, is for- 



